In Holden 50 years ago, deaths of 3 nuns eclipsed by JFK news

Thursday

Nov 21, 2013 at 6:00 AMNov 21, 2013 at 6:03 AM

By Dianne Williamson, TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

Like so many Americans of his generation, Jim Sullivan will never forget the day that John F. Kennedy was killed. Unlike most, though, he doesn't focus on the motorcade in Dallas — he recalls a horrible local accident that faded from the collective memory of a region transfixed by the death of a president.

On Nov. 22 of 1963, Sullivan was 31 and employed by the former Reed Rolled Thread Die in Holden when a foreman announced that JFK had been fatally shot by an unknown assassin. A Catholic Democrat, Sullivan left work about 3 p.m. and drove to the Blue Plate, a local watering hole.

"There were a lot of people in there and everyone was watching television," Sullivan recalled. "People were crying. I was totally, totally upset. I couldn't believe this could happen."

He left the bar and was headed down Route 31 in Holden toward his home in Spencer when a female passer-by flagged him down.

"A car just went into the water!" he was told.

He didn't know it then, but the car was carrying three Catholic nuns, all biological sisters, and their driver. As historic events unfolded some 1,800 miles away, the sisters were returning to convents in Connecticut after celebrating their mother's 88th birthday party in Fitchburg. Witnesses would later tell police that their car swerved off the road, crashed through a guardrail and plunged 15 feet into Kendall Reservoir.

The water was cold and Sullivan hesitated, but only briefly. Then he dove into the reservoir.

"All I could see was the left rear wheel of the car," said Sullivan, now 81 and speaking publicly of the accident for the first time. "I opened the driver's-side door and pulled out the driver. He was dead and his face was blue. I got him onto the rocks and went back for the others ... By then the police had arrived."

But their efforts to save the passengers were too late. Pronounced dead at Holden Hospital were the LaFosse sisters of the Order of St. Joseph — Marie, 68, known as Sister Celina Marie; Eva, 63, known as Sister Mary Martha; and Beatrice, 54, known as Sister Mary Ferdinand. The deceased driver was Timothy Lahey, 69.

The next day, the tragic news was reported at the bottom of page one of the Worcester Telegram but was largely eclipsed by coverage of the assassination. The Evening Gazette relegated the story to page 8 and The Boston Globe carried a short story on page 23. Then the story disappeared as the assassination dominated the news.

George Sherrill was 6 years old in 1963. Some 15 years later, when he became a patrolman for the Holden Police Department, he would hear older colleagues refer to the accident.

"It was always mentioned as 'those nuns who died,' " Sherrill said. "But no one knew much about it, or even their names."

Sherrill became chief in 1998. A history buff, he said he began "poking around" five years ago to learn more about the sisters and the accident, but no police records existed.

Eventually he enlisted the aid of Linda Sasso, an English teacher at Wachusett Regional High School, who involved student Hannah Evangelidis in the project. They pored through old newspaper clippings and reached out to witnesses. They traveled to St. Joseph's Cemetery in West Hartford, Conn., where the sisters are buried in a row on a hillside. In June 2012, they taped an interview with retired state police Capt. Raymond T. Alzapiedi, who dove into the water several times in a futile attempt to save the nuns. Alzapiedi would die seven months after the interview, at age 94.

They also interviewed retired state police Maj. Edward Tonelli, who recalled that the nuns' heavy wool habits and garments weighed them down in the water and made rescue efforts difficult.

"Their clothes were floating around in the car and we were not sure what we were grabbing," Tonelli said.

Sherrill and Sasso learned that a fourth LaFosse sister, also a nun, had intended to accompany her siblings to their mother's party but became ill at the last minute. They also learned of speculation that the 69-year-old driver heard about the assassination on the radio and suffered a heart attack or stroke, or simply became distracted.

They learned that Sullivan, the first man to dive into the frigid water, showed up the next day at state police barracks because he was haunted by the deaths and wondered what more he could have done to save the sisters.

At Holden police headquarters, Sherrill has filled the lobby with memorabilia — old badges, pictures of a stone cabin in Jefferson that served as a jail in the 1940s, and newspaper accounts of the town's only bank robbery, in 1966.

Friday, on the 50th anniversary of the death of a president, Sherrill will add the story of three quiet nuns and their driver, all of whom will be linked forever by timing and tragic circumstance. Most of his officers hadn't even been born in 1963, and their chief believes in honoring the past.

"Time goes by so fast," Sherrill said. "I think it's important to preserve our history for future generations. If we don't do it, who will?"